Dispatches reveals ageism still afflicting job market
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A Channel 4 Dispatches documentary has revealed that substantial barriers still face older people in Britain’s job market - despite the passage of laws supposedly outlawing such ageism. Called “Too old to work“, the programme transmits on Monday the 9th of February.
Not surprisingly, the investigation finds that being older - even over 45, is a big risk in today’s workplace. Older workers are more likely to lose their jobs, and are then much less likely to secure another one.
To test whether recruitment agencies do discriminate against older candidates, Dispatches carried out an experiment. It pitted two accountants, a 57-year-old father and his 25-year-old daughter, against each other in a contest to see who can achieve the most offers of work via agencies.
Martin Lloyd-Penny has 30 years of accounting experience whilst his daughter Tanne is still a trainee. They registered with the same recruitment agencies and kept video diaries of their progress. They had very different levels of success - no prizes for guessing who got the most job offers
The programme also looks into the impact of forced retirement, interviewing several people who have been forced out of their jobs, and reporting on the broader picture with a specially-commissioned You Gov survey.
Dispaches also investigates whether there is any scientific basis for commonly held beliefs about the effects of ageing. Professor Lorraine Tyler is shown measuring the brain activity of people aged 18 to 90 using neural imaging techniques. Her research contradicts the idea that older brains cannot function as well as younger ones.
The programme demonstrates through physical fitness tests that age is not necessarily an indicator of fitness or productivity.
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February 10th, 2009 at 11:42 am
I watched this program last night, and frankly have mixed reservations about its content; I have personally encountered ageism within agencies and I am only ‘38’. I agree with the employing peer’s mentality, as I have witnessed this in many SME sized organisations though I think that’s its more due to management inadequacy than youth culture than completing against more experience.
Despite this some interviewed were I thought both somewhat naive and perhaps greedy, mandatory retirement exists for insurance reasons and to ensure the workforce remains healthy and does not stagnate and result in promising staff migrating due to lack of opportunities. If the current economic climate was healthier these people would have took retirement and would adapt, my parents retired a few years ago it was an adjustment initially but they are much happier now.
The answer here is simple, regulate these employment agencies or better get rid of them and return to HR Departments; they are holding the keys to the gates and stopping people getting into work.
March 15th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Well done to Dispatches for exposing a disgraceful practice that is costing the UK dearly. I used to work for the Chemical Industry as an R&D chemist and was made redundant at 43. It was effectively the end of my career in that field as it is a highly ageist industry sector. I recognised all of the standard fobbing off techniques in dispatches that agencies AND employers use to reject you through covert ageist recruitment filtering. After trying to get another comparable job in the sector I gave up after three years. I now work in the public sector and was able to get job offers at 45, 48 and 50, something I could not envisage happening in the Chemical Industry. The current legislation is toothless, doing little more than simply describing ageism as “unlawful”.
Nick misses the point about agencies, the fact is that many companies who recruit directly are ageist and those that do use Agencies are asking a third party to do their dirty work (ageist filtering) for them.